plays [46]
but on your indulgence. Miss
Musgrave, will you honour me with your hand in marriage?
DOROTHY. Mr. Austin, if I thought basely of marriage, I should
perhaps accept your offer. There was a time, indeed, when it
would have made me proudest among women. I was the more
deceived, and have to thank you for a salutary lesson. You chose
to count me as a cipher in your rolls of conquest; for six months
you left me to my fate; and you come here to-day - prompted, I
doubt not, by an honourable impulse - to offer this tardy
reparation. No: it is too late.
AUSTIN. Do you refuse?
DOROTHY. Yours is the blame: we are no longer equal. You have
robbed me of the right to marry any one but you; and do you think
me, then, so poor in spirit as to accept a husband on compulsion?
AUSTIN. Dorothy, you loved me once.
DOROTHY. Ay, you will never guess how much: you will never live
to understand how ignominious a defeat that conquest was. I
loved and trusted you: I judged you by myself; think, then, of
my humiliation, when, at the touch of trial, all your qualities
proved false, and I beheld you the slave of the meanest vanity -
selfish, untrue, base! Think, sir, what a humbling of my pride
to have been thus deceived: to have taken for my idol such a
commonplace imposture as yourself; to have loved - yes, loved -
such a shadow, such a mockery of man. And now I am unworthy to
be the wife of any gentleman; and you - look me in the face,
George - are you worthy to be my husband?
AUSTIN. No, Dorothy, I am not. I was a vain fool; I blundered
away the most precious opportunity; and my regret will be
lifelong. Do me the justice to accept this full confession of my
fault. I am here to-day to own and to repair it.
DOROTHY. Repair it? Sir you condescend too far.
AUSTIN. I perceive with shame how grievously I had misjudged
you. But now, Dorothy, believe me, my eyes are opened. I plead
with you, not as my equal, but as one in all ways better than
myself. I admire you, not in that trivial sense in which we men
are wont to speak of women, but as God's work: as a wise mind, a
noble soul, and a most generous heart, from whose society I have
all to gain, all to learn. Dorothy, in one word, I love you.
DOROTHY. And what, sir, has wrought this transformation? You
knew me of old, or thought you knew me? Is it in six months of
selfish absence that your mind has changed? When did that change
begin? A week ago? Sure, you would have written! To-day? Sir,
if this offer be anything more than fresh offence, I have a right
to be enlightened.
AUSTIN. Madam, I foresaw this question. So be it: I respect,
and I will not deceive you. But give me, first of all, a moment
for defence. There are few men of my habits and position who
would have done as I have done: sate at the feet of a young boy,
accepted his lessons, gone upon his errand: fewer still, who
would thus, at the crisis of a love, risk the whole fortune of
the soul - love, gratitude, even respect. Yet more than that!
For conceive how I respect you, if I, whose lifelong trade has
been flattery, stand before you and make the plain confession of
a truth that must not only lower me, but deeply wound yourself.
DOROTHY. What means - ?
AUSTIN. Young Fenwick, my rival for your heart, he it was that
sent me.
DOROTHY. He? O disgrace! He sent you! That was what he meant?
Am I fallen so low? Am I your common talk among men? Did you
dice for me? Did he kneel? O John, John, how could you! And
you, Mr. Austin, whither have you brought me down? shame heaping
upon shame - to what end! oh, to what end?
AUSTIN. Madam, you wound me: you look wilfully amiss. Sure,
any lady in the land might well be proud to be loved as you are
loved, with such nobility as Mr. Fenwick's, with such humility as
mine. I came, indeed, in pity, in good-nature, what you will.
(See, dearest lady, with what honesty I speak: if I win you, it
shall be with the unblemished truth.) All that is gone. Pity?
it
Musgrave, will you honour me with your hand in marriage?
DOROTHY. Mr. Austin, if I thought basely of marriage, I should
perhaps accept your offer. There was a time, indeed, when it
would have made me proudest among women. I was the more
deceived, and have to thank you for a salutary lesson. You chose
to count me as a cipher in your rolls of conquest; for six months
you left me to my fate; and you come here to-day - prompted, I
doubt not, by an honourable impulse - to offer this tardy
reparation. No: it is too late.
AUSTIN. Do you refuse?
DOROTHY. Yours is the blame: we are no longer equal. You have
robbed me of the right to marry any one but you; and do you think
me, then, so poor in spirit as to accept a husband on compulsion?
AUSTIN. Dorothy, you loved me once.
DOROTHY. Ay, you will never guess how much: you will never live
to understand how ignominious a defeat that conquest was. I
loved and trusted you: I judged you by myself; think, then, of
my humiliation, when, at the touch of trial, all your qualities
proved false, and I beheld you the slave of the meanest vanity -
selfish, untrue, base! Think, sir, what a humbling of my pride
to have been thus deceived: to have taken for my idol such a
commonplace imposture as yourself; to have loved - yes, loved -
such a shadow, such a mockery of man. And now I am unworthy to
be the wife of any gentleman; and you - look me in the face,
George - are you worthy to be my husband?
AUSTIN. No, Dorothy, I am not. I was a vain fool; I blundered
away the most precious opportunity; and my regret will be
lifelong. Do me the justice to accept this full confession of my
fault. I am here to-day to own and to repair it.
DOROTHY. Repair it? Sir you condescend too far.
AUSTIN. I perceive with shame how grievously I had misjudged
you. But now, Dorothy, believe me, my eyes are opened. I plead
with you, not as my equal, but as one in all ways better than
myself. I admire you, not in that trivial sense in which we men
are wont to speak of women, but as God's work: as a wise mind, a
noble soul, and a most generous heart, from whose society I have
all to gain, all to learn. Dorothy, in one word, I love you.
DOROTHY. And what, sir, has wrought this transformation? You
knew me of old, or thought you knew me? Is it in six months of
selfish absence that your mind has changed? When did that change
begin? A week ago? Sure, you would have written! To-day? Sir,
if this offer be anything more than fresh offence, I have a right
to be enlightened.
AUSTIN. Madam, I foresaw this question. So be it: I respect,
and I will not deceive you. But give me, first of all, a moment
for defence. There are few men of my habits and position who
would have done as I have done: sate at the feet of a young boy,
accepted his lessons, gone upon his errand: fewer still, who
would thus, at the crisis of a love, risk the whole fortune of
the soul - love, gratitude, even respect. Yet more than that!
For conceive how I respect you, if I, whose lifelong trade has
been flattery, stand before you and make the plain confession of
a truth that must not only lower me, but deeply wound yourself.
DOROTHY. What means - ?
AUSTIN. Young Fenwick, my rival for your heart, he it was that
sent me.
DOROTHY. He? O disgrace! He sent you! That was what he meant?
Am I fallen so low? Am I your common talk among men? Did you
dice for me? Did he kneel? O John, John, how could you! And
you, Mr. Austin, whither have you brought me down? shame heaping
upon shame - to what end! oh, to what end?
AUSTIN. Madam, you wound me: you look wilfully amiss. Sure,
any lady in the land might well be proud to be loved as you are
loved, with such nobility as Mr. Fenwick's, with such humility as
mine. I came, indeed, in pity, in good-nature, what you will.
(See, dearest lady, with what honesty I speak: if I win you, it
shall be with the unblemished truth.) All that is gone. Pity?
it